Frances Louise McDormand is an American television, film, and stage actress. She was born June 23, 1957 in Chicago, IL.

Early Life

McDormand is one of four children all of whom were adopted by Vernon and Noreen McDormand. Because of her adopted father’s line of work, they moved to multiple small cities in the southeast before settling Pittsburgh area. After graduating high school, McDormand attended Bethany College in West Virginia where she got her bachelor of arts and got her Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Drama where she roomed with another actress, Holly Hunter. Her first job was acting on stage in Trinidad and Tobago.

Working with the Coens

McDormand made her motion picture debut in what was also the debut of the Coen Brothers in 1994 with Blood Simple. In this she played Abby, the wife of a bar owner having an affair with one of the bartenders. It was on the set where she got to know director Joel Coen and they ended up getting married later that year.

In the next three films Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, and Barton Fink, she had very minor roles, going uncredited in the latter two. She was then not in The Hudsucker Proxy but landed the role of her career in 1996 as the heroine in the critically acclaimed Fargo. She played Marge Gunderson, the pregnant police chief investigating a double homicide. She was recognized by the Academy as the Best Actress for this role along with winning multiple other awards.

She has only been featured in two Coen Brother movies since. In The Man Who Wasn’t There, she played Doris Crane, the wife of a barber who is also having an affair, but this time with her boss. And most recently she played the self-conscious Linda Litzke who works at a gym but feels the need for cosmetic surgery because she feels she can go no longer in her current body.

With the exception of the character Abby and Doris, her other characters have been a bit on the quirky side. In Raising Arizona Dot was a mother of poorly-behaved children but seemed to be a bit too happy of person, especially for one who raised such brats. In Fargo, her character is very smart and intuitive but still acts just a little goofy from time to time. It may be the circumstances she’s in, the people she’s around, her accent, or the manner in which she speaks, but sometimes her presence can be quite comical. And finally in Burn After Reading, Linda’s persistence in getting money from blackmailing a former FBI agent is well past the line of ridiculous and tries to get money in the most absurd ways.

Other Work

Even though McDormand is married to one of the Coen, she does not work with them exclusively. She has been in more movies without them than projects they worked on together. Some of these movies garnered her Academy Award Nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous, and North Country. She also landed large roles in major motion picture such as Wonder Boys, Primal Fear, Æon Flux, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and Transformers 3.

She does not star movies exclusively though, and has guest starred on several popular TV programs. Some of the more popular programs she’s been on are: Hill Street Blues, The Twilight Zone, State of Grace, and The Simpsons.

As for the stage in America, she has only been in a few, but her most prominent role was playing Stella in “A Streetcar Named Desire” which earned her a Tony Award Nomination for Best Actress in 1988.

Many in the industry have considered McDormand to be a kind of antithesis to the typical Hollywood star. While she’s been nominated for four Academy Awards and won one, her name still is not one that brings a lot of attention to a film. Many believe this is because when she plays a role she is too good to where it’s no longer about her name, but her acting becomes that character without you thinking about who it is doing the acting.

Personal Life

McDormand and Joel Coen are still married and adopted their only child, Pedro McDormand Coen, from Paraguay in 1994. The three reside in New York City when not on a movie set. She is also a member of the jury for the New York International Children's Film Festival.